Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines Sold To Existing Fans Of The Series

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that followed our coverage of Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines this past week. The game, which was released in Japan on July 17th, sold primarily to existing fans of the series, rather than reaching out to new consumers.

The news comes via Japanese sales tracker Media Create, who have provided a little more insight into Oreshika: Tainted Bloodline’s sales.

Tainted Bloodlinessold 93,775 copies in its first week. Media Create says the game sold through 73.64% of its shipment. This is very similar to sales of the Oreshika 1 remake on PSP, which was released in 2011. That sold 94,085 copies in its first week, selling through 79.71% of its shipment.

Retailers told Media Create that, despite Tainted Bloodlines being the first Oreshika game in 15 years—the original having been released on PS One—it sold to existing fans, just like the PSP remake of the original did.

And so, as suspected, the poor rating that Tainted Bloodlines received on Amazon is a result of the game being purchased primarily by fans of the series that weren’t happy with some of the changes Sony made to the story and gameplay.

Ishaan specializes in game design/sales analysis. He's the former managing editor of Siliconera and a contributing writer at GamesIndustry.biz. He also used to moonlight as a professional manga editor. These days, his day job has nothing to do with games, but the two inform each other nonetheless.